Just the fact that you’re working in vectors and able to resize accurately at the behest of the client is a clincher.

I can’t help but think that web design has been ‘taken over’ by illustrators and print designers who are comfortable with PS and as a majority (and no small part by Adobe’s neglect) it has now become the defacto standard and doesn’t deserve it.

PS is a photo editor – the clue is on the name. Yes it can do a lot more but features have been added piecemeal to the point where it is just plain hard to use.

As a freelancer who has always used Fireworks and who now wants to re-enter mainstream employment getting to grips with PS is just plain frustrating.

Too slow… Panels???? Beurrrrkkkkkkk!!!!!! SPIT IT OUT!!!!!

I’ve been using fireworks for 5yrs already…. Tried Photoshop!!!! Hmmmmm the first look at it gave me the feeling “Beuurrrrrrrkkkkkk I’ll stay with fireworks!!!!” N till date i’ve never used photoshop…. Reasons: It is not user friendly, Anything done in photoshop is possible in fireworks and fireworks seems better

The vector tools of Fireworks are much better.

The interface is much easier to grasp at its basics than the clumsy and heavy PS interface.

All effects are non-destructible, all vectors and options are retained – not like in Photoshop.

The flexibility of Fireworks is very good.

You can create a website design ONLY with vectors and effects, and everything will be editable after you save the PNG. In Photoshop you’ll loose a lot of the editability due to some bitmap convertion…

Finally, let me repeat that FW is NOT a niche product, but a full-power full-featured graphic design app and it’ll become even more powerful in the time to come – hopefully around v. CS4!

Cheers, my $0.02 :)

PS Ah, and btw, Macromedia’s interface (Flash, Fireworks, DreamWeaver) is so much better than Adobe user-unfriendly interface – best example – Photoshop! :-D The interface is the reason while 3-4 years ago I’ve chosen FW and not PS!

It’s nice to see Designorati talk about Fireworks and let me thank you
for mentioning my article in your review. You have to be aware that I
wrote that piece quite a while ago when the current version of Fireworks
was MX 2004 and Photoshop was at version 7. That explains some of the
points I was making about Photoshop.

Regarding your review, I don’t think you will be surprised to know that
I disagree with many of your points, especially your insistence at
positioning Fireworks as a “niche” product. I really could not disagree
more with that statement.

I strongly believe that the main reason Fireworks has not been more
widely adopted by designers for actual creative work at this point is
the former Macromedia’s ineptitude at marketing it correctly. It’s
certainly not Fireworks’ toolset or workflow that is lacking, especially
not now with CS3. It’s not perfect, but it offers a an intuitive,
flexible and powerful workflow that no other application I know of offers.

Fireworks has been my main creative tool for almost 10 years now. It has
replaced Photoshop in a part of my process where I had always found
Photoshop to be incredibly awkward for many of the reasons I stated in
my article. Even with the improvements in Photoshop over the years which
do include a lot of non-destructive editing features, I have always felt
that Photoshop is a terrible design and layout tool by its very nature
as a raster based editor. To me, any vector based application does a
better job of any kind of layout than Photoshop as they are just much
better suited to these kinds of tasks.

If Fireworks didn’t exist, I’d probably have switched my Web design
workflow to Illustrator around the same time I discovered Fireworks.
It’s just quicker and more flexible for me but it may just boil down to
what we feel comfortable with as well as our design styles.

I do agree with you about Fireworks CS3′s lack of UI improvements
though. I used to be a rabid fan of the Macromedia interface but I have
used and loved Adobe software for even longer. What I love in the new
CS3 UI is that I think it has successfully “melded” the best of both
world in a way that is vastly superior to anything both Macromedia and
Adobe have done before. To me this is especially true in InDesign and
Illustrator.

Hopefully Fireworks will get the same treatment in CS4 and it may even
result in more people adopting it for a lot more than a mere ImageReady
“replacement” which in my view is almost an insult to Fireworks ;-)